UN-Habitat's Director-General Anacláudia Rossbach visited the Viable Cities program office at KTH to discuss deeper cooperation with the program with a focus on accelerating climate change adaptation in cities. Among other things, they discussed a stronger joint focus on efforts in Ukraine and gathering strength ahead of the COP30 climate conference in Belém.
The Director-General met with Viable Cities Program Manager Olga Kordas, Åsa Minoz and Olle Dierks of the program team. The meeting was also attended by Dyfed Aubrey, Head of UN-Habitat's Brussels Office, Åsa Jonsson, Head of the Global Water Operators' Partnerships Alliance and Xuesai Ma from the Strategic Partnerships Unit.
UN-Habitat, the UN agency for sustainable cities and communities, has been working with Viable Cities since 2020. Much of the collaboration has revolved around the Climate Smart Cities Challenge, which was launched from the Swedish Pavilion at Expo Dubai 2021. Some of the results were presented in UN-Habitat's World Cities Report 2024, which had the theme Cities and Climate Action.
There is great potential for deeper cooperation on the climate transition in cities globally, including shared learning. The dialogue explored experiences and ambitions linked to a global initiative on system demonstrators, procurement and digitalization. This builds on previous cooperation. As part of further deepened cooperation, the dialogue also discussed a stronger joint focus on efforts in Ukraine and the build-up to the COP30 climate conference in Belém, where the climate transition of cities will be a central theme.
